Free Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune by Lynn Abbey Page B

with the skin of eyelids sewn shut. Even so, false eyes he had—painted in kohl—and the young woman flinched at the sight of them, for they reminded her of the markings on a death’s head moth. Long, bony, grasping fingers he had, and bony limbs from what she could see of his wrists and arms jutting out from partly rolled-up voluminous sleeves. And when his cadaverous whisper came—“Well?”—she was certain she was speaking to a corpse.
    Hâlott on the other hand saw before him a young woman, and surely a lady, for beneath the coarse-spun cloak she wore the quality and cut of her garments told a tale. Too, her ginger hair was well coifed and in the latest style, and she was quite clean. Her nails were well manicured, and she wore a ruby ring on a finger of her right hand, a ring Halott recognized.
    “What brings you here from the court, my lady?” Hâlott whispered.
    She gasped. “How did you—?”
    “I am Hâlott,” replied the necromancer, as if that explained all. “Won’t you step into my—”
    “No, no,” she blurted, drawing back from this, this creature . And she twisted the ring from her finger. “Lady Na—um, my mistress commanded me to bring you this.” Her hand trembled as she gingerly held out the ring, the circlet tentatively grasped between thumb and finger, the maiden no doubt hoping against hope that she wouldn’t come into contact with Hâlott’s withered digits. “Though I can see nothing wrong with it, my mistress says it needs repair. Yet when I suggested Thibalt the Rankan—Thibalt the Jeweler—could mend any ring, she said it must come to you. And so …”
    Hâlott’s blue-tattooed lips twitched in what was perhaps meant to be a grin, but appeared more like a grotesque facial tic instead. Again his hollow whisper sounded: “When?”
    “My lady says she needs it two days hence, for she would wear it at the courtyard gathering three days from now.” In spite of the repellent being before her, the young woman’s face lit in anticipation. “We are celebrating the visit of per-Arizak—he usually stays up in the hills, you know—and just about everyone will be there, and my mistress would wear her bloodred stones.”
    “Bloodred. How fitting,” said Hâlott, and again he smiled, this time more widely, his rictus exposing yellowed teeth.
    The woman flinched back.
    Hâlott held out his hand, palm up, and said, “Come back at this time two days hence. Tell—tell your mistress it will be ready by then.”
    With relieved smile on her face, for she did not have to touch the yellowed and no doubt dead skin, the young woman dropped the ring into Hâlott’s hand and turned and fled.
     
    A t the palace, Nadalya, the golden-haired second wife of Arizak, stood in an alcove and whispered to fair-haired Andriko, and from the cast of his face and hair he, like Nadalya, was clearly of Rankan blood. The tongue they spoke was neither Rankene, Ilsigi, Irrune, nor even the bastardized Wrigglie. Instead in hushed tones they spoke Yenizedi, a language not likely to be understood by anyone else in this part of the palace.
    “Driko, I would have you ride into the hills and find me a hornet’s nest, or that of wasps,” she murmured as the setting sun shone through a nearby casement and cast a ruddy light over all. “Make certain that it is plugged or contained in some manner so that they cannot escape, though I will need a means to set them free.”
    “My lady?” Andriko’s blue eyes widened in disbelief. “A hornet’s nest? Oh, ’tis the season, and I’ve seen one out in the hills, but hornets, wasps?”
    Momentarily, Nadalya’s face flashed in ire, but then she smiled and said, “Yes, Driko. I would have the nest, a large one at that, with many of the stingers inside. It is for a … demonstration I have in mind.”
    Andriko shrugged nonchalantly, though a bit of a frown of puzzlement yet lingered on his face. “I can get a small wooden cask or box and enclose a nest